Ten Crime Novels You MUST READ before You Die
This was a bonus session hosted by Declan Hughes and John Connolly, two Irish crime writers. The room was small. I guess they expected a smallish turnout. Hah! If you got there early--Angela and I did--then you got a seat People were standing at the edges of the room when they weren’t sitting on the floor.
Hughes and Connolly were on fire. They focused on crime novels, not mysteries or thrillers, but crime novels. And they went more for authors than specific books, though they mentioned what they considered the best in that author’s oeuvre.
They ignored Poe, Conan Doyle, and Dostoyevsky. The first two deal in detection--and cheat--and the third really deals with the moral consequences of crime.
They started with--who else?--Dashiell Hammett because in THE MALTESE FALCON, RED HARVEST, and above all, THE GLASS KEY, Hammett changes the name of the game. It’s less about the detective finding clues than about putting people in confrontations. Hammett used confrontation to elicit the truth.
I’ve read TMF and several of Hammertt’s short stories. The man was brilliant, and a master of omniscient point of view.
Next, they discussed Raymond Chandler. They pointed out all of Chandler’s faults--he railed against corruption, couldn’t plot, and wrote misogyny. But Philip Marlowe is still the man, Chandler's prose was beautiful, and the novels are also about friendship. The two books to read here are THE LONG GOOD-BYE and/or THE BIG SLEEP. In fast passing, they did mention his essays, contained in THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER, were more than worthwhile.
I’ve read one novella by Chandler, and a graphic novel of PLAYBACK. I have never taken to him the way I did to Hammett.
Number three on their list was Ross MacDonald. Lew Archer’s his PI. In the novel Hughes and Connolly chose, THE CHILL, MacDonald uses an unsympathetic central character and takes his structure from the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”. MacDonald’s novels, they said, tended to be a veiled commentary on Chandler. I confess to not having read any MacDonald, but I have lined up to buy THE CHILL.
Hammett and MacDonald are truly important in crime fiction because Hammett dropped the body back into the alley where it belonged and MacDonald finds the body and traces it back to the big house. Was the grandson the victim? or the perp?
Fourth on their list was one I didn’t expect--Patricia Highsmith. They chose her novel, DEEP WATER. They described it as a perverse comedy of manners and called her the poet of malaise, a dealer in degrees of immorality. Having read several of her short stories and THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, I agree absolutely with them that she wasn’t a humane writer. She wrote with a cold heart.
Ed McBain came fifth with his 87th Precinct series. He was the father of the police procedural, and he kept that series going for fifty years. That’s right--fifty years. He also created a recurring villain many consider to be one of the best in literature--The Deaf Man. Hughes and Connolly didn’t pick any particular novel out of the 87th Precinct series, but I’m reading THE HECKLER, which introduces The Deaf Man. I do like a good villain.
A note here about the difference between the police procedural and the private eye novel. With the former, there is an administrative routine to follow, though the trick is to get the detective to go maverick; with the latter, the fictional private eye (PI) investigates murder when in real life they don’t because that fun belongs to the cops.
Another side note for all you Robert Lansing fans. Lansing played Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct both in a movie--THE PUSHER--and on a TV series, THE 87TH PRECINCT. On TV, Norman Fell played Det. Meyer Meyer; Gena Rowlands, Teddy Carella, Steve’s deaf-mute wife. In book, McBain handles that beautifully.
Number six is George V. Higgins and his novel THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE. I’d never heard of this bloke. According to Hughes and Connolly, Higgins begins the Boston School of which the late Robert Parker’s Spenser series is a part. They raved about Higgins’s prose--like David Mamet in prose--and gushed about his extraordinary dialogue. For Higgins, talk = action and talk = weapon.
This novel’s in my Kindle. After Steve Carella and Jack Reacher, Eddie Coyle and Philip Marlowe come first.
James Lee Burke comes in at number seven. This choice is a stretch for me. For all that I like Southern Gothic, I didn’t like Burke’s writing, or his detective, Dave Robicheaux as a character, when I last tried to read a novel. Perhaps if I try the novel Hughes and Connolly picked--DIXIE CITY JAM.
Our hosts enthused about Burke’s use of landscape; they see it as crucial to crime fiction. They said if the physical and psychological landscapes mesh, then a writer gets resonance. And they put him in the same category as John Steinbeck. Interesting. They called Burke a Catholic novelist, for redemption and forgiveness are considerable issues for him. What the hell does this mean? And do Hughes and Connolly think that these aren’t issues for serious Protestants? Nonsense.
Margaret Millar comes in eighth on the list. She was married to Ross MacDonald, and as with another famous writing couple, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Margaret was initially more successful than Ross. They said Margaret could plot like mad--twists as revelation. She was terrific on anxiety and had a distinctively female cruelty that tempered with wit. I’ll have to get a copy of A STRANGER IN MY GRAVE and find out just what the hell they mean by “distinctive female cruelty”!
They threw Thomas Harris in at the nine hole. He created the first novels of serial killer subgenre. I read SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, which they describe as a lover’s pursuit. The first was the best, and it should’ve been the last. The whole subgenre needs to go.
Last but not least on the list was Agatha Christie. I understand their reasoning. There’s a dark side to Dame Agatha. Under a placid exterior, deeply unpleasant emotions swirl about, and once exposed, there’s no return to normal. Murder exposes the emotions permanently alters the landscape and people’s perceptions. Hughes and Connolly also admired her economy of detail and took a shot at PD James, saying she overelaborates.
I’ve tried to read their choice of novel, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKEROYD, and failed. I may have to try again, but Hercule Poirot is so bloody annoying. However, TEN LITTLE INDIANS (aka AND THEN THERE WERE NONE) was brilliant. I devoured that book in hours. I need to go back and read it again to pick all the subtleties in it.
The honorable mentions were Charles Willeford’s MIAMI BLUES and James Crumley’s early novels. Crumley’s LAST GOOD KISS is a commentary on Chandler’s LONG GOOD-BYE.
And for the record, Declan Hughes and John Connolly sold themselves as crime writers who know their place in both the genre and its history. They had a hell of a good time with this panel. I know I did, too, and learned a lot in the bargain.
When I've finished the novels they selected, I'll report back on whether or not I think they're right.